How
the FCC's Broadband Plan and the AT&T-Verizon-Corporate Funded
Astroturf, Co-Opted Groups and Think Tanks Will Harm Our Economy.

The
FCCs chief economic advisor for the broadband plan is on leave
from a corporate-funded think tank that wants to keep competition
off the networks and give more perks to AT&T and Verizon.

The
FCC Consumer Advisory Committee and Other Committees Are Filled with
Consumer and Minority Groups and Others with Corporate Ties
Who Protect Their Funders  AT&Tand Verizon.

=======

Part
1: Why Is
America
15th in the World inBroadband?The
FCCs Broadband Plan Will Fail because it Refuses to Take on
AT&T and Verizon who Control Americas
Infrastructure.

On
March 16th, 2010, the FCCwill announce a national broadband
policy that, based on numerous sources, refuses to actually fix the
current problems of broadband and is being helped along by AT&T
and Verizons corporate-funded think tanks, astroturf and
co-opted groups and lobbyists.

The
FCCs plan is a testament to how corrupt America
has gotten.Why? Because
the hard questions which need to be dealt with
are being pushed aside to protect the corporate interests that
got us into this mess.

Mess?
Well, while you sit on the web reading this, the current average US
broadband speed, according to speedmatters.org, is 5mbps down and
1mbps upload; thats 1/20th the download speed
you can get in, say, Hong Kong, or Japan or France, and 1/100
the upload speed. Today, in Hong
Kong 100mbps in both directions, costs about $20 bucks
-- cheaper than US broadband by leaps and bounds.

AT&T
and Verizon claim theres plenty of competition. Yet, you cant select your own Internet
provider over the broadband networks and local phone prices have gone
up -- 90% in New York and New Jersey, for example, (based purely on
actual phone bills) over the last 5 years. If there was competition,
prices couldnt increase. By not having competition, the
cable and phone companies created Net Neutrality issues,
the ability to block or degrade or favor their own service
over others. If there was competition and you had
problems, you could simply leave and go somewhere else.

But
the real kicker?By 2010, America should have already been rewired.
We, the public, spent about $320 billion for fiber-based networks
since the 1990s and have nothing to show for it. It has made
us 15th in the world in broadband. In fact, in many states, all schools,
libraries and hospitals should have been rewired with fiber optic
service as part of changes to state laws that gave AT&T and Verizon
billions per state to replace the old copper wiring with new fiber
optic wiring. Worse, the money is still being collected today in the
form of rate increases, tax breaks and other perks to the companies.

We
requested this new FCC investigate
our claims, to create a workshop to investigate all of the money currently
being collected. We even sent the FCC a report that was created
to enhance the official Columbia CITI report that the FCC requested
on broadband statements of deployment, commitments and outcomes. It
outlines how 26 different states had been promised a fiber optic future
and it was never rolled out, but state laws were changed and billions
collected to pay for these upgrades. And, in many states, rural, urban
and suburban areas were to be upgraded equally.

This
isnt a history lesson. In 2009, Verizon, New York
got the state commission to raise local rates yet again to pay for
fiber optics,which, because the FCC removed competition, means only
one company, Verizon benefits. This same thing is happening throughout
the US.

Based
on numerous sources, the FCCs national broadband plans is going
to be a farce. Its plan is to
increase your taxes as it is going
to add broadband to the Universal Service Fund Tax,rewarding the same companies that harmed you, by giving
them more of your money and a free pass.

To
make sure that America has broadband, the FCC proposes to have
the deployment done by 2020: The FCC writes: A 100
Squared initiative -- 100 million households at 100 megabits
per second -- to unleash American ingenuity and ensure that businesses,
large and small, are created here, move here, and stay here.I.e., in 10 years from now, what is already being offered in
many other countries -- very high speed broadband-- should reach America in a decade, thrusting us
farther behind. This means less jobs, this means more expensive broadband,
this means it harms our economy as many of the newest applications
will be developed in other countries.

But,
more to the point -- theres nothing in what the FCC is about
to do that would compel the carriers to do anything except come up
with more schemes to get more money out of government -- read you
-- for services that they already got paid to do and didnt.
In fact, if the FCC did a search they would see Verizon claimed
it was going to do 100 mbps services way back in 2003. (Barron's,
March 24, 2003)

And
building new infrastructure? AT&T filed with the FCC to
close down the Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) i.e.,
the telephone utilities  the wiring to most homes, offices,
schools and libraries; in short, the critical infrastructure
that most services travel over today. AT&T now claims that there
are now 2 networks -- a broadband network and the aging
utility. This plan is
to remove all vestiges of regulation so that they can screw, thats
a technical term, every person using the phone networks with rate
increases, worse service and limited, read no competition.

There
is only 1 network. The Public Switched Telephone Network, that was
never properly upgraded  Everything else has been a bait and
switch where the public paid over $320 billion  but the regulators
refuse to investigate the flow of monies. If they did, they wouldnt
be raising your taxes.

More
to the point, AT&T is currently NOT building out fiber optic networks
but has pulled a massive bait and switch and is still using the old
copper wiring, which was supposed to have been replaced. U-Verse,
AT&Ts broadband product cant
handle very high speeds and the failure to properly upgrade the
infrastructure over the last 15 years is going to harm 22 states--
½ of the US.

Because
of really harmful mergers that consolidated what is now AT&T,
if youre in California, (Pacific Bell, now AT&T), Ameritech
(Ohio, IL, WI, IA, or MI),BellSouth, (southern states, including
Florida, Alabama or Kentucky), Southwestern Bell (including Texas
of Kansas), or even SNET (Connecticut) -- these companies have previous
commitments that they simply ignored, but collected billions per state
to upgrade. Now, youre stuck with whatever AT&T decides
to roll out.

And,
based on reading the previews,the Broadband Plan does NOT propose
to reopenthe networks
to competition; the previous FCC administration, through a series
of bad rulings eliminated competition. The FCC plan, we believe, will
not fix that mistake.

While
we were ignored,more to the point -- You were harmed
by the coziness of the FCC with corporate funded think tanks and astroturf
and co-opted groups.

Part
II:Regulatory Capture
101  How Astroturf Groups, Co-Opted Groups, Corporate-Funded
Think-Tanks Work and Walk Freely in the Halls of the FCC and Congress.

How
can it be that the FCC can simply ignore the data we provided? Easy,
the FCC is being controlled and has cozy-upped to the corporate think
tanks, astroturf
and co-opted groups that now travel the FCCs corridors with
impunity.

·AstroturfAn organization
set up by a large corporation or corporations to put forward the corporate
agenda but to look like an authentic 'grass-roots' group.

·Co-optedAn
authentic group that is given funding by a large corporation or corporations,
where the group lobbies for corporate initiatives even if they are
contrary to the needs of its members.

·SkunkworksA well coordinated campaign funded
by large corporations (or industries) that incorporates Astroturf
and co-opted groups, research think tanks, PR firms, lobbying firms,
state and federal politicians to put forward the corporate agenda
on a specific topic.

Lets
be specific The current head
economic advisor for the FCCs national broadband plan is Scott
Wallsten and he is on leave from the Technology Policy Institute.
According the Washington Post, The Technology Policy Institute,
a think tank funded by major Internet providers AT&T Inc., Comcast
Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc ., Also, Scott Wallsten
is also a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and
Public Policy.

Or,
is any wonder that the head of the FCC National Broadband plan, Blair
Levin, will be joining Technology Policy Institute and The
Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy with a host of other
experts to discuss What are the plan's effects on innovation
and investment? The panel are phone and cable companies and
corporate-funded experts who sell their services to the
phone companies or their non-profits, or schools
of higher learning that also receive funding from AT&T, or Verizon
or their related associations and astroturf groups.

·Robert Crandall  Worked for AEI-Brookings,
which was funded by the phone companies. His latest report,
which was to prove that the Harvard Berkman report (which
was requested by the FCC) on broadband was wrong, was funded
by National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and
United States Telecom Association (USTA)  the national cable
and phone associations. Crandall also published articles with Scott
Wallsten including: Universal Broadband Access: Implementing
President Bushs Vision, Policy Review, 2004, No. 127 (with
Robert Crandall, Robert Hahn, and Scott Wallsten)

·More recently, Broadband In
America written by Robert W. Crandall and others was funded
by the astroturf group Broadband for America,
which is funded by AT&T, Verizon etc.

·John Mayo, Executive Director, the GeorgetownCenter -- His bio states he worked for
AT&T, MCI, Sprint.

·Robert Shapiro, Senior Fellow, the GeorgetownCenter -- is the co-founder and chairman
of Sonecon, LLC and includes in his bio that he worked for MCI and
AT&T.

The
GeorgetownCenter for Business
and Public Policy states it isa non-partisan research center whose mission is
to engage scholars, business people and policymakers. Theres
no balance on this panel. Its goal is to harm competition and keep the duopoly
in control, using questionable data and analysis, which we will be
documenting next week.

Why
does this all matter? Well, recently, AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Time
Warner, the NCTA (cable association) the CTIA (wireless association)
and the USTA (phone association), outlined how the networks
should remain closed because if not, investment on broadband would
stop. Besides collusion --i.e., the cable and phone and wireless companies
are filing a joint document --the paper also claims that Free
Press, Public Knowledge, and a handful of others are asking
for a radical agenda -- to open the networks to competition.
The details are too arcane for anyone but telecom wonks, but the truth
is the cable, phone and wireless companies and associations have created
a cabal to keep their networks closed based on, well, a rewrite of
the history of broadband in America.

And,
Technology Policy Institute is also claiming that opening the networks
is wrong. This means that the Chief Economic Advisor to the National
Broadband Plan is essentially stating we should kill off competition.
In their analysis they, of course, dont mention the fact that
$320 billion was already collected and is still being collected or
whether there is real competition besides a duopoly. http://www.techpolicyinstitute.org/news/show/23185.html

Why
hasnt the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) said anything
useful? Because of financial conflicts of interest
with their funding sources.

The
FCC has committees, including the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee.
We were on the Committee in 2003-2004, but were not asked back
when we outlined to the Washington Post how the Committee had corporate-funded
astroturf and co-opted groups and industry players, not consumers,
and that these other groups
closed down conversations, such as truth-in-billing or
competition.

While
there are groups on the committee that are seriously pro-consumer
many of the organizations are getting funded by Verizon, AT&T
or the cable companies.

National
Consumers League -Debra Berlyn, is now Chairperson of the CAC. The NCL is now getting
funding from Verizon and other corporations for their projects. http://www.nclnet.org/
(Check out their new web site.) And its current Life Smart
program has Verizon as one of its funders. And corporate funding goes
way back. In 2000, Now-AT&T and Verizon paid for NCL web
site upgrades to proselytize something called CALLs which
raised local phone rates. The former NCL chairman,
Sam Simon, still a board member of Amplify Public Affairs,
(*formerly Issue Dynamics) single handedly helped to create multiple
astroturf/skunkworks campaigns.

http://www.nclnet.org/board-of-directorsAnd telco union, Communications
Workers of America, is also on the NCL
Board of Directors. We have asked NCL to outline its funding sources
and amounts. We never heard from them.

Its
clear that the Consumer Advisory Committee is simply a case of regulatory
capture. Theyll never call for an investigation of the funding
sources.

Other
committees, such as the Universal Service Administrative Company,has added David P. McClure, President and CEO, US
Internet Industry Association as one of the five Board of Directors
to represent Internet Service Providers. USIIA has been funded by
Verizon for almost a decade. His group does not and never did
represent the independent ISP community.

And
every day there is a new slap in the face. The FCC just announced
that

Didnt
the FCC also notice that she is on the Board of Directors of the astroturf
group,Alliance for Public
Technology, (APT) whos funders are -- AT&T, CTIA (wireless
association), Embarq (formerly sprint), Qwest, Verizon and the
phone lobby, United States Telecom Association  and it has been
run out of Sam Simons offices. http://www.apt.org/about/affiliates.html

Is
she going to confront AT&T overcharging consumers? Weve
filed multiple complaints that AT&T has been harvesting
its long distance customers, continuously raising long
distance rates. Did you know that AT&Ts basic long distance
rate is now $.42 a minute and because of all of the questionable fees
and charges, low volume customers can pay $1.00 a minute or more.
The last data from 2006 showed that AT&T had over 25 million long
distance households  ¼ of the US.

And
these financial ties to non-profits are everywhere. Simple example:
The monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool News,
selected the NAACP Interactive Historical Timeline as its featured
Site of the Week for Feb. 22-28. The site was funded by a $500,000
grant from the Verizon Foundation. Verizon Thinkfinity is linking
teachers, students and parents to the timeline's many valuable resources.

Is
it any wonder that last year the NAACP, LULAC and other ethnic non-profits
signed a letter they were concerned that the FCC would act on Net
Neutrality in a manner that would harm the phone and cable companies!
How did that help the black or Hispanic communities?

In
sum -- No one is investigating the monies currently or previously
collected by AT&T, Verizon et al, nor their failure to properly
upgrade the utility phone networks they were paid to upgrade. No one
is going to confront the 900 pound gorillas. There will be no mention
of serious competition, but there will be billions outlined to give
to the companies who already overcharged you.The FCC will release a plan that is simply fluff  a vision
of the year 2020 that is today, antiquated.

And
worse, the FCC talks about transparency and 'accurate
data'. As we have learned -- its just lip service. This plan
is the corporations design, not a design for America.